The Ascent Of Man: Quo Vadis?

Will science advance or develop to a point where it will be possible to eliminate death?

Can machines possess consciousness?

Will there ever be a drug to prevent or reverse madness?

These questions have provoked investigation into how far the world has come since the Big Bang that began the process by which human beings developed on Earth from now-extinct primates, as propounded by evolutionists, or since the quest to operationalise the biblical mandate to “increase and multiply”.

Ascent Of Man: Quo Vadis?  is the work of Professor Kwame Amuah, a South Africa-based Ghanaian nuclear scientist whose waking hours are occupied, daily, by thoughts about the future of this world from where it has evolved from the Dark Ages. 

Book

The book, set out in 24 chapters, is a follow-up of and/or is inspired by The Ascent of Man, the influential work by Jacob Bronowski’, the Polish-British mathematician and philosopher, who set off the enquiry several decades ago.

His 1973 work, reviewed in chapter 1 and expanded in this publication, takes readers through the Enlightenment into the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution into Space X; it is the story of man which Amuah describes as “the journey from awe to understanding, from understanding to mastery, from mastery to transcendence”.

Chapter 2, The Revolution of Thought, is what this Reviewer recognises as “the real big bang”: it is, for me, the more believable evolution of inspired thought by the mental giants, from Galileo to Einstein, whose probing minds succeeded in releasing the human mind into the epochs in which “the gods of mystery and superstition were replaced with the deities of logic and empirical evidence”.

Chapter 4 is loaded. It introduces the world of machines, the Industrial Revolution, “an entity born of iron and steam, of cog and wheel” that enabled humans to “bend the forces of nature to our human will… Each machine, each invention has been a symbol of our ascent”, characterised by the unveiling of “the secrets of the atom” and breakthroughs in fields such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the Internet, autonomous vehicles, nanotechnology and quantum computing.

Chronicles

In-between, the book reviews our planet’s dance with political ideologies and the governance and financial systems of the 20th century.

It chronicles the search for utopia, the age-old concept of the Individual versus the State, including what Amuah describes as the “omnipresent surveillance state” (as predicted by George Orwell in his classic, 1984) where “every digital footprint is tracked, every communication is monitored and every dissenting voice is algorithmically identified and muted”. 

Consciousness

Readers are invited to contemplate the mystery of consciousness, “a journey into the heart of our existence.”

Conservatives will warn that it is the line which humans were never to cross because “to understand consciousness is to understand ourselves, to glean insights into the meaning of life.” 

The author has conscience and, therefore, is at pains to remind the shakers and movers of this world that “our ascent is not just a journey of discovery but also a voyage of ethical exploration and moral discernment.”

For instance, he asks: “Can we use genetic engineering to design our children, to select their traits like items from a catalogue?” 

God

Like most scientific enquiries that leave God out of the equation, this brilliant work gets stuck at the end. In the epilogue, the author wonders, “Have we really ascended?” and concludes with a word of caution: “Let us choose wisely”

Non-science readers ask: Are we building a Tower of Babel, attempting to be on a level with God, mightily attempting to prove that there is no God?

On the other hand, what is the alternative to the human quest?

The Pastor Mensa Otabils of this world posit that the biblical command to “increase and multiply” meant more than multiply through procreation; that it was a command to multiply in knowledge and ideas to bend the world to our will.

Which seems to suggest that even without the intervention of the tempter (the biblical serpent), Adam and Eve, groping their way to a better life, would, with time, have touched and eaten of the forbidden fruit?

Implications

‘Quo Vadis’ has implications for Africa’s future. Advancement is inevitable. Africa better get on board or fossilise or forever be ruled by those of the human species who are willing to enquire and move on.

As it was 400 years ago, we shall be fighting off invaders with bows and arrows, warding them off with shields made of animal skin when the enemy is advancing with ballistic missiles.

Is “Quo Vadis?” a futile and fruitless question? This reviewer does not think so.

The concerns Amuah raises are the same concerns that birthed the UN Sustainable Goals and its Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP)

Within the limits that he sets for himself, the author says, “We embark upon this adventure not in search of answers but of questions,” because “our quest is not anchored to any presumed certainty of knowledge of immutable truths”

‘Quo Vadis’ represents years of obvious painstaking research by an author who soaked himself in as much knowledge from as many sources as there was knowledge available.

That is what makes the book so mind-expanding.

If for no other cause, this book will drive an appetite for knowledge.

It has required the author’s impressive combined knowledge of science, philosophy, history, music and literature. 

If you are a typical thinker, worried stiff about the future of the world, one thing is certain to happen to you by the time you turn the last page of this book: it will murder your sleep, a veritable bee in your bonnet.

The literary style will commend the book to writers’ clubs.

The reviewer is Executive Director,
Centre for Communication and Culture.
E-mail: ashonenimil@gmail.com